If you want to be a Badger, just come along with me

We headed up to Dad's house (which is in 'the dirty sex' as Heather so recently put it) to visit the Milwaukee Public Museum and engage in all kinds of other fun and hilarity.

We hit up the museum with my Dad. Neither boy had gotten enough sleep so they were both crabby. Carter ended up freaking out about all the things that were being killed (the infamous T-Rex eating the Triceratops, the Native Americans hunting the buffalo, all the dead animals on display) and we didn't even view the last floor of the museum. I was disappointed to see that the Egypt exhibit is gone, but did enjoy running through my favorite part, The Streets of Old Milwaukee/European Village (and I do literally mean run) even if I didn't actually get to see much. I'd live in there if I could.







We hung out at the house.



Picked pumpkins from the garden (placed kindly by Dad as the deer had eaten the ones Jeanne grew). Heather took enough pictures of me picking pumpkins with Carter to make a flip book with us moving, but I'll spare you and only share one.




She did manage to squeeze this lovely shot in though.


I can do it!


Okay, maybe I can't.


Oh look, here's another one. It's like developing a roll of film and finding half of it is self portraits of Andrew.







Carter actually got to drive the other lawn tractor this time. He did pretty good with it, pulling the trailer around the yard and then carrying Dad and Oz up to the top of the hill where Dad was brave enough to run the log splitter with both boys and no other adults (a trip I may not have approved had I known that's what they were going to do).

We hit the woods. It's nice to go back there in the fall when the danger of ticks is over. Have I mentioned my fear of ticks? I'm afraid of ticks. No thank you, I'll skip them.

In a bet for lunch, Heather climbed a tree to sit in the tree stand. It was more hilarious than this video lets on.









Farmers don't like to throw things away. They stick old equipment out in a field and save it as it will probably have a purpose again some day. My dad subscribes to this mentality and you can find all manner of interesting things at his house. On this particular day, some of the things he'd saved proved their use in making me nearly pee my pants.


Hobo Heather sleeping on a bunkbed surround by burrs.


Getting a little exercise in. (I seriously could NOT keep a straight face)


Out on the links.





We ended up finding a family of mice living in an old golf bag. Carter got to touch this one and then when we shook out the bag another four came scampering out. I didn't know mice jumped when they ran, but they do. And one almost jumped right up Heather's pant leg which was FUCKING HILARIOUS. Seriously. Hilarious.





On our way home we hit the Vilas Zoo in Madison with Heather and my BFF Meghan and her three kids.


Sera rock climbing.


Oz going down the big slide by himself.










It would have been extra cute if we could have gotten Carter up there, but he refused, but Noah and Xander look cute.

After the zoo (yes, those were all at the zoo. The children were unimpressed with the animals, but did love the play area) we went out for Thai food, yum! Then I stopped at Meghan's new house in Oregon and headed home.

Random, random, whose got the random

Buzz cut.







Carter helps cook dinner. The yellow rubber gloves were his choice. The face in the second picture is because he was afraid the chicken was on fire because of the smoke.

Everyone Hails to the Pumpkin Song

Halloween was pretty fantastic, a large part of which was due to Parry and Suzanne coming down for the weekend and offering up their free babysitting services to us. Andrew and I were able to go out for the first time in ages and not have to worry about being home at a certain time and it was rather fun.

Halloween festivities started on Monday when Carter, Oz and I went to a Trunk or Treat with the AP group. The kids trick or treated from trunk to trunk and ran around and played.









For Halloween costumes, Carter was planning on being Woody, but after doing a little shopping at Halloween stores he changed his mind and wanted to be "scary bones". I decided he was too little to be scary bones and he reconsidered and was willing to be "happy bones" which is how he ended up with the skeleton costume. I wasn't fond of the idea and tried to convince him to be any number of other cute things, but at least I was able to salvage some cute by making him the fuzzy set out of fleece.

Oz is a piece of sushi. I made his white pants and sweatshirt out of fleece. The pillow is out of salmon colored quilting cotton and the nori is left over fabric from an apron I made for Heather several Halloweens ago.

They got to wear their costumes again on Wednesday for the Montessori School Halloween Carnival.

During the week I worked furiously to sew my costume.


I also finished up Andrew's. The result was this:



Andrew is, obviously, Willy Wonka, ala Gene Wilder. I made the coat, bow tie and vest for him.

My costume is a reproduction of the dress Epperson made for the movie challenge during this season of Project Runway. The original looks like this:







Saturday we carved pumpkins.







And took the boys trick or treating.


Oz insisted on holding a piece of candy in his hands at all times, but was a good sport and said 'Thank you' and 'Bye' at each house. He also stole two pieces of candy at many of the houses.

Carter managed to complain almost the entire time. It's my fault as I had forgotten to bring water for him, so starting about halfway down our block he started complaining about it and continued to for the duration. He also complained about how tired he was and kicked Oz out of the stroller after awhile. (this from the child who can complete a 3 mile hike in hilly terrain without difficulty).


The haul. M&M's were the most popular thing this year.

Andrew and I went out again on Saturday night. Details of the adult debauchery can be read in Andrew's blog.


I also let Carter watch The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time. He loved it to pieces so we enjoyed watching that together a few times since I think it's an awesome movie too.

We Visited the W.R.

Andrew's 10 year high school reunion was in September so we headed up for that. I seem to have not actually taken any pictures of the weekend, which probably has something to with me getting horribly sick and spending all of Friday night throwing up ham (which is HORRIBLE because it still tastes like ham). Needless to say I am now boycotting ham until at least Christmas when the lure of ham gravy may be too much for me.

Someone took this picture of Andrew and his high school BFF Jay at some point.



I did manage to snap these pics with my blackberry.





I feel like the Oktoberfest theme really shines through in them.



Behind Andrew you can see the delicious food spread. O_o

I'm not exactly sure where our $70 went, but it certainly wasn't spent on decorations, food or that awesome Miller 64 they served (which I couldn't drink b/c I was still feeling sick).